"Well, (Treasury Secretary) Lloyd Bentsen hasn't discussed it with me. If I call him or he calls me and there's a discussion, we'll take a look at it, Cokie," the Chicago Democrat said on "This Week with David Brinkley."

But that innocuous remark dominated the evening national TV newscasts, while newspapers gave it big play the next morning. A Page 1 story in the Baltimore Sun heralded, "Hearings Hinted on Whitewater."

The real story behind those headlines is the influence of a decades-old Washington institution, the Sunday "newsmaker" talk shows.

They've become a media and public policy fixture, with an impact disproportionate to the modest size of their audiences. Government officials use the shows to shape news and politics, knowing the audience includes many of the political leaders they try to influence.

"I call it the bread and butter of news because these are really the people that are doing the decisions . . . what we do is to give a broader picture of the people who are making things happen," said NBC senior producer Betty Dukert, who since 1956 has worked on "Meet the Press."

ABC's Brinkley show, NBC's "Meet the Press," CBS' "Face the Nation" and CNN's "Late Edition," with their heavy dose of Washington movers and shakers, usually provide the capital's only semblance of news on Sunday, a notoriously quiet day.

Reporters watch from their homes or newsrooms, or camp outside the network studios hoping for that week's guests to produce some newsworthy nugget.

"A lot of light stuff gets covered that normally would not get covered during the week. You're usually stretching for your news product," said Marsh Ness, a weekend producer for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis.

And Washington's political leaders can use a slow day to their advantage.

"You can make news on (the shows) and that's the reason to go on," said Marlin Fitzwater, press secretary to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Quite often the administration will place a spokesperson on all three shows in what Fitzwater calls "block advertising."

That happened vividly one recent Sunday when the indisputable news of the week was the appointment of a new White House counsel.

Lloyd Cutler. Lloyd Cutler. Lloyd Cutler.

There was the 74-year-old lawyer, picked just days earlier as President Clinton's new counsel amid growing embarrassment over Whitewater, running from TV studio to TV studio.

He gave Brinkley, NBC's Tim Russert and CBS' Bob Schieffer almost exactly the same answers, even the same quips.

"This time last week I was busy doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle and listening to you," he said three times.

The shows' producers spend hours on the phone trying to get sole possession of the week's best newsmaker.

Competition for guests is strong, if relatively cordial. "Everybody wants to have the best show, but it's pretty high-class competition," said CBS' Schieffer.

Some Washington figures have become newsmaker show regulars. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) has been on "Meet the Press" so many times that some members of the production staff posted a scorecard to keep track-37 appearances to date, according to one show employee.

The cerebral and chatty Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, is also a popular guest.

On the other hand, some prominent Washington figures, such as Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), make a point of avoiding appearances on the shows. A Kennedy spokesperson said the senator wants to spend weekends with his family and he "doesn't need a national profile."

All of the shows claim they do not set out to "make news." David Glodt, the executive producer of the Brinkley show, said his show aims to enlighten and appeal to an audience that is well-read, middle-aged and civic-minded.

"I think in general people in the West feel somewhat isolated from politics in Washington and the shows give people an opportunity to see the heavyweights from Washington without the news filters of TV newscasts or reporters," said Linda Schacht, a free-lance TV reporter and lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley's journalism school.

Some of the shows on occasion add a twist. Seeking to get a better sense of the public's view of Whitewater, ABC recently beckoned acerbic New York radio host Don Imus, while a "Face the Nation" segment on "black violence" included Bill Cosby as a guest.

The shows' commercials target an upscale audience, with an emphasis, for example, on luxury cars. They also tend to sell a company versus a product, said Tom DeCabia, a senior vice president with Paul Schulman Co., a New York media buying firm. One frequent advertiser is Archer-Daniels-Midland, Co., based in Decatur, Ill., which champions increasing ethanol in gasoline to clean the air.